1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a method, an apparatus and a system for selection of an evaluation method (in particular a static evaluation method) from a number of evaluation methods that are available for evaluating presented information, so that the selected evaluation method is correct and optimally designed with regard to a measurement series to be empirically evaluated.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Empirical examinations in technological fields and in medicine normally involve data processing and/or analysis, in particular of a static evaluation.
There are a number of static decision models and strategies that make a decision as to which measurement series should be evaluated with which static test. The decision strategy should be designed in principle such that the probability of a wrong conclusion is optimally minimized.
For example, if two test results or two measurement series should be compared with one another, various static tests are available for this purpose. Given a number of tests that can be applied in principle, it is possible that a significant difference between the measurement series can be seen in the comparison of two measurement series with a static method A, but no difference is detected with another method B. The selection of a suitable test for the test series to be evaluated is therefore of particular importance.
A problem in the selection of such evaluation methods is that different empirical examinations also require different evaluation methods. The methods differ significantly, for example with regard to the variance of the data or the association of the data with measurement series to be compared. If an incorrectly or non-optimally designed test method is used (selected), it can lead to a misinterpretation of the data and thus to an error with serious consequences.
For example, a test known as the U-test can be applied when two data samples should be compared with one another, where the data in each sample are independent from sample-to-sample. The U-test is a pool choice and can even lead to an incorrect result, however, when measurement values or samples should be compared with one another that have a sample-to-sample dependency. For example, in the case of dependent samples the Wilcoxon test is preferable.
In particular in the field of medical technology, the investigation of data or the measurement values represents a significant effort since patient examinations are regularly required to obtain the data or values. Moreover, the scope of the samples (the number of the measurement values) is often small and thus very sensitive with regard to the selected and applied statistical method. Furthermore, after the selection of a suitable statistical test method it is necessary to adjust specific parameters for the test to achieve an optimal conclusion result. If these parameters are incorrectly set, the result of the statistical test can be incorrect or at least capable of being misunderstood.
At present there is no computer-aided, automatic selection method for selecting a statistical evaluation method for measurement series that are in particular based on medical data. Conventionally, a specialist in the field of statistics normally has been consulted if a correct statistical evaluation method must be selected. An automatic computer-aided, dialog-based selection of a statistical evaluation method is not available in the field of medical technology. Another possibility is to manually select the statistical evaluation method by conducting research in known publications that are based on similar study conditions in the hope that a statistical evaluation method used elsewhere can be transferred to the medical evaluation in question. Such manual selection, however has the disadvantage that the search for similar examination methods is very complicated and error-prone. The alternative of consulting a statistics specialist is normally associated with a high cost.
In this context, United States Patent Application Publication No. 2004/0150665 A1 discloses a system and a method for dialog-supported manual selection of a statistical method. The procedure proposed in that document concerns web-based applications and is based on a hierarchically-structured logical process structure that assists the user in steps in making the selection of a statistical tool. The user is successively guided through the selection process and must manually enter data for each of the hierarchical (decision) levels. Dependent on the input data, different masks appear that in turn require further inputs. This step-by-step procedure has the disadvantage of requiring a large time of expenditure. Moreover, the necessity of manually making multiple inputs entails a risk that incorrect inputs cannot be reliably precluded.